KIEV. Oct 2 (Interfax-AVN) - Units of the 8th army corps of the Northern operational command will perform live firing on the Zhitomir and Belaya Tserkov testing grounds on Thursday, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Defence Ministry told Interfax-Military News Agency on Tuesday.
The firining will end the experimental command post exercise held by the corps, said the spokesman. Its main peculiarity is that for the first time in 12 years 900 reservists and 20 civilian vehicles were involved in the war games. Reservists were recruited last year to take part in an exercise of the Northern command's 30th tank division, though the draft had a much smaller scale.
In accordance with the plan of Armed Forces reform and development for the period until 2005, the 8th army corps headquartered in Zhitomir will become the backbone of the quick response forces, the spokesman stressed. That is why the exercise aims to check readiness of the large units organic to the corps, first of all the 72nd mechanised division, to carry out mobilisation and put units on the highest degrees of alert, he said.